


Show Me Where My Armor Ends

by fallendarlings



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Depressed Steve Rogers, Depression, Fluff and Angst, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Lonely Steve Rogers, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers-centric, Touch-Starved, basically steve hasn't gotten used to being Big, steve has a massive crush on thor but he doesn't really know it yet, thor takes care of steve, vague suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26524711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallendarlings/pseuds/fallendarlings
Summary: "You're allowed to hurt, Steven. But you have friends now, too. And we will not-Iwill not let you suffer alone any longer. It is only through helping each other, that we remain strong."When Steve finds himself breaking, unable to sleep and miserably lonely, he also finds Thor on the roof.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Thor
Comments: 29
Kudos: 221





	Show Me Where My Armor Ends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [apricotcake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/apricotcake/gifts).



> i wrote all of this in two hours from 1am to 3am spiraling over stevethor it has not been proofread or edited in any way i just needed to get it out wow man they really hit different like wow. this is entirely self indulgent and i expect it to only get like seven hits but its so important to me!!!!!
> 
> this is dedicated to suzy who generously gave me the writing braincell tonight so i could make this happen for stevethor nation
> 
> title from pluto by sleeping at last.

The dreams wake him, like they always do. In the pitch black, Steve thrashes, trying to get free of the sheets that have tangled around him in his distressed slumber. They’re damp with sweat even though the air conditioner is blasting, keeping the room at a temperature some would akin to him having Stockholm syndrome for his icy grave. He gets loose from the fabric, not without ripping it, and lands hard on the floor. The impact radiates up from his knees, bruises forming only to be healed before they can color. It’s too dark to see anything, even with his inhumanly sharp eyesight. This high up, towering over the city in a building controlled by a computer that can completely block out all windows on a single command, it’s easy to find darkness. It’s easier to be in the dark, when he wakes. He doesn’t have to look down at his body and find washboard abs heaving and a chest that looks unreal gasping for breath. He doesn’t have to see how _wrong_ he looks to his own eyes, even after all these years. 

He presses clammy, shaking hands to his face and breathes. In. And out. In. And out. It’s not always the same dream, not always Bucky’s falling screams that echo in his ears. Tonight, it was shells detonating, buildings burning around him as innocent bystanders scream until he’s not sure if he’s helping them or condemning them to a fate even worse than what they already had. It’s Hydra agents dying under his hands, blood under his nails and there’s no running water nearby. Nothing to wash the death from his skin until it’s already dried, already sunk into him and he can scrub until it’s _his_ blood that’s flowing and it still won’t go away. They were horrible, evil monsters and they had to go, but it’s still a gut wrenching, _sickening_ thing to kill another person.

Seventy years in the future and he’s still carrying the people he’s killed, still covered in their blood even when the naked eye can’t see it. 

“Captain Rogers, you are in distress.” Jarvis says, disembodied and completely inflectionless, like he does every night. “Can I be of any help?” 

“What time is it,” Steve asks, because he doesn’t have a clock on his nightstand. Not one of those with the glowing lights like they have in some movies. He has a phone but he can’t bother to reach for it when he can just ask the AI anything. 

“It is half past three, Captain.”

Half past three. Too late to go back to sleep, too early to be awake. He licks his lips, draws his knees to his chest. “Is anyone else awake?” By anyone else, he and Jarvis both know he means anyone on the team. Not the Tower night staff, janitors and security guards and such. Steve doesn’t really want to live here, but he doesn’t want to be by himself either. If he were to go to another apartment like the one SHIELD issued him when he was defrosted- cold and lifeless- he might go to bed and never get back up. At least here at the tower there are other people around that force him to _live_. There’s cleaning staff which means he has to make sure his apartment doesn’t end up looking like a garbage pile. There are team meetings and an open residential floor where there’s always food in the kitchen so he doesn’t have to cook. Everyone else kind of comes and goes- Tony and Pepper have their house in Malibu, Nat and Clint are with SHIELD and are often on missions. Thor has a whole planet to run. Bruce sometimes disappears but nobody knows where he goes and he always shows up again sooner or later. Steve’s really the only one that’s always here. Adrift, not quite sure what to do with himself. He’s an Avenger but he’d refused to sign with SHIELD, to become one of their agents. He’s tired of taking orders. 

Not that it seems to be doing him much good, judging by his sleepless nights and days spent thinking only of when he can crawl back into bed and pretend he doesn’t exist again. 

All in all, he’s doing pretty shitty. Everyone thinks that he isn’t one to lie and they’re wrong because Steve lies more than he speaks truth. But he can’t fool himself. 

“Indeed, Captain. Thor is currently on the roof.”

“Thor,” Steve echoes. Out of everyone on the team, he likes Nat and Thor the most. They get along the best. Nat grew up in Russia under conditions where Captain America was probably a mere footnote. Or at the very least, she wasn’t taught to revere him. Thor, of course, had never heard of him. Thor is a god, a prince, a _king_. Steve’s propaganda filled life story means nothing to him. 

Out of everyone on the team, they treat him the most like he’s just _Steve_ , not some paragon of justice and truth. 

“Can you bring up the lights a little?” He waits for them to slowly increase until he can see before he drags himself to his feet, one hand braced on the end of his bed. There’s a mirror on one wall and he doesn’t want to think about why he stares at himself, scrutinizes his appearance. He’s _too big_. It’s all wrong, hands the size of fucking hams hanging limply at his sides, shoulders almost as wide as the mirror itself. He doesn’t want to go back to being sick, to being on the brink of death- even though he’s not actually afraid of dying- but he doesn’t want to be this either. From the moment he stepped out of that metal tube, he’s felt like he was borrowing someone else’s body. He was never supposed to be this and it will never feel comfortable, never be right. Dark circles ring his bloodshot eyes, even the serum can’t erase the tells that he hasn’t slept more than four hours in the past week. 

Everything is so fucking hard. When he lays down at night and stares at the black darkness, he aches for someone else to be there. Too many years of curling up next to Bucky- first in their little apartment where they couldn’t afford two beds, then in the war, out in the snow sharing bedrolls for warmth. Every night he aches with the loneliness, settled so deep in his bones that they weigh far more than they’re meant to. He wants to claw his chest open with his bare hands and rip out his beating heart, because what use is it? It breaks itself to pieces every day and the serum heals it right just for it to shatter again. 

He sniffs, angrily dashes the wetness off of his face. “Dramatic,” he mumbles. He’s always been dramatic; his mother said so, Bucky said so, hell, goddamn Colonel Philips said so. Doesn’t change a thing. 

Really, he shouldn’t be doing this. Shouldn’t be going to the roof. Thor probably wants to be alone. But the thing is…. 

The thing is, Steve doesn’t think _he_ can be alone right now. He feels a little wild, limbs numb and head fuzzy and he’s just maudlin enough to do something he might regret. And he thinks… he thinks Thor likes him, thinks of Steve as a friend. So maybe. Maybe he won’t mind a little company. Steve grabs a shirt from the drawer, pulls it over his head without really looking at it. It turns out to be a tank top, one of those ribbed cotton ones that stretch far more than they look like they would. He doesn’t even bother to put on shoes, just lets himself out of his apartment and goes to the elevator. “The roof, please, Jarvis.”

As the lift ascends, he stares at his hands, watches how they still tremble. He’s so fucking tired. He’s so fucking lonely. He just wants to go home. He wants his shitty slum of an apartment, he wants to struggle for breath in the stuffy summer air, wants his mother’s cool hands cupping his face. Wants Bucky’s arm looped over his shoulder as they amble along the sidewalks, head bent to talk into Steve’s good ear. Even with his perfect hearing now, he still unconsciously turns, puts his left ear to whoever is talking. He doesn’t even realize the elevator has stopped moving until Jarvis announces that they’ve been idle for two minutes. “Right.” He swallows and steps out, onto the roof. This high up, the wind is frigid and buffeting. Even though he runs warm, his skin breaks out in gooseflesh immediately. 

It takes him a few minutes of looking around to spot Thor. He’s sitting out on the quinjet landing deck- one knee propped up and face tilted toward the sky. As Steve approaches, his gaze flickers over and the corner of his mouth tilts up. “Ah, Steven. Awake at this hour?”

“I guess-” Steve clears his throat, shrugging. He wraps his arms tightly around his stomach. “I couldn’t really… sleep. Jarvis told me you were up here. If you want to be alone, I can leave.”

“Of course not. Sit down.” Thor taps the ground next to him. “It’s a beautiful night.”

“Is it?” Steve asks faintly. He lowers himself to the ground, hyper aware of the heat radiating off of Thor- he runs even hotter than Steve, it seems. “I guess I hadn’t noticed.” There’s a piece of loose skin hanging off the side of one of his nails and he rips it off, hardly noticing the sting. He glances up at the sky, unsure what he’s supposed to be looking for. It’s New York City. All there really is is smog and glare from the lights below. Not a star to be seen.

“I see,” Thor says, smiling again. Steve blinks at him. “A night doesn’t have to be clear and full of stars to be beautiful, Steve. Of course, the stars are up there even if we cannot see them from where we sit. But it is enough to feel the wind on your face and be in the company of friends, to make it beautiful, don’t you think?” When Steve doesn’t respond right away, when he swallows and blinks away another rush of burning tears, Thor turns to face him. “Are you alright?”

It’s too much. It’s all too much and Steve’s breath comes shaking out of him, a broken gasp. “Not really,” he whispers. “Sorry, I’ll go-”

He barely even gets his feet under him before Thor’s hand wraps firm around his wrist, tugs him back down. “Don’t be alone in your sorrow.” He squeezes gently, his other hand coming up and pushing Steve’s overlong bangs away from his forehead. “Is that not what friends are for? To help each other through the bad and rejoice in the good together?”

Steve’s staring at Thor’s hand on his wrist. He’d never noticed until just now, quite how big Thor is. His hand easily wraps around Steve’s wrist with room to spare and when Steve looks up, he has to look _up_ to look at him. It’s dizzying. It’s… for once, he feels a little _right_. At least with the size of his body. Like this, he isn’t the giant one. Maybe he’s still the size of a fucking tank, but with just the two of them here, he’s suddenly, achingly small in the face of Thor’s bulk. Combined with the way he’s still gently running his fingers through Steve’s hair- the wind keeps blowing it into his eyes and Thor keeps pushing it back-, he breaks. It’s not the same as Bucky. But Thor is the first person to treat him gently since 1945. To offer himself as a friend, to shoulder some of the burden of Steve’s pain. “I-” his voice cracks. Try again. “I can’t really sleep. I’m not used to sleeping alone- I always shared before. It’s hard to fall asleep and once I do, I get these awful nightmares and wake right back up. I’m not used to _being_ alone. I always had B-” he takes a deep breath. “I always had my best friend. He’s gone now. I don’t know what to do in this world. It’s hard to just exist.” It all comes out in a rush and he regrets it as soon as it’s out of his mouth. Gets the urge to blurt out apologies and run away, hide in his bed and never sleep but never leave the shelter of the blankets again. Until the day he stops breathing. 

“Battle does make the soul weary.” Thor frowns, a furrow forming between his brows. “But it is not right that you should have to go it alone. I, too, have lost many friends in war and the pain of it… it does not fully leave you. The ones who pass on leave their marks on us, names on our hearts for us to remember them with. And it hurts, yes, but it helps us keep their memory with honor. They would not want us to be miserable.” His hand leaves Steve’s wrist, only to move down, to twine their fingers together and squeeze. “You are _very_ young to have been through so much. And even in all my years, I have never heard of anyone going through quite what you have. To lose friends to battle and then lose even more to a century of sleep… you’re allowed to hurt, Steven. But you have friends now, too. And we will not- _I_ will not let you suffer alone any longer. It is only through helping each other, that we remain strong.”

Most of the time, Steve doesn’t feel young. Not anymore. He’s seen far too much for any human to not feel ten times older than he is. But he is. Only twenty-seven. He might not have even been dead yet, had he not taken the serum. They said not past thirty and he hasn’t hit that yet. He takes a deep breath. 

“You’re shaking.” Thor says. “Are you cold?” He doesn’t even wait for Steve to reply, leaning back to drag his own sweater over his head and pull it down over Steve’s instead. The chunky green knit is warm from Thor’s body and smells like the air before a thunderstorm, sharp with ozone. 

Steve can’t bring himself to protest, just slips his arms into the sleeves. They’re too long for him, coming down far enough to cover his hands. “Thank you.” He doesn’t know what else he can say. To the sweater or to everything that Thor had said before that. He still doesn’t feel like he’s fully awake. Head fuzzy from sleep or lack thereof. It’s easy to blame it on that when he slumps forward, when he rests his head against Thor’s shoulder, eyelids drooping. Thor’s bicep is warm against the side of Steve’s face, muscles soft enough to be a decent pillow. But not that long ago, Steve had been using the ground and rocks for pillows so he’s maybe not the best person to judge. 

“Yes,” Thor says, tipping his own head against Steve’s. “Rest, my tired warrior. I will tell you a story of Asgard and if it does not help you sleep in peace, then I will keep looking until we find something that does.” 

The story goes: When Thor had been a young boy, perhaps nine or ten, he had been walking through the palace gardens with his mother. It was not meant to be a happy walk, rather one of punishment. Earlier in the day he had broken a very, _very_ priceless artifact and he had blamed it on his brother, Loki. Since Loki was prone to tricks and tales, Odin had believed Thor and punished Loki accordingly. But when their mother had found out, she was able to confirm Loki’s story that she had seen him reading in one of the halls at the time that the artifact had been broken. Odin had apologized to his son, of course, but he could not take back the punishment and give it to Thor instead. However, instead of allowing her husband to also punish Thor, Frigga insisted upon dealing with the incident herself. 

Rather than any punishment that finds its power through pain or fear, Frigga had taken her son to walk with her in the gardens as the evening was creeping in. Among the plants, they had strolled in silence until Thor had burst out _Mother, aren’t you going to say anything?_ And Frigga had knelt to pluck a flower from a bush, looking at him solemnly. _I wanted to have a quiet walk with you to let you think about what has happened today. We all make mistakes and break things sometimes. It isn’t something you have to be ashamed or afraid of. But when you try to blame those mistakes on others, that is when it becomes something you have done wrong. You didn’t only break that object today. You broke your brother’s trust in you. You broke your father’s trust in you. You have to work to earn those things back. They aren’t easily patched. And I know, my son, that siblings will scuffle and fight with each other. But you should try to remember to guard each other from harm as well. There will be no better friend, no one who understands you more than the person who you grew up with. And there will be a day when you wish you could talk to him only to find that that opportunity has long passed. There is no punishment worse than that. So try to appreciate and care for each other while you can._ And she had patted his shoulder and brought him back to the castle with her, where they had shared a very somber tea. But, as Thor recounts, nothing his father could have punished him with would have been as effective as his mother’s quiet disappointment in him. 

Or, at least that’s how Steve thinks the story goes. He’s really too sleepy to tell.

***

Steve wakes to the sun in his eyes and soft humming, the faint digital music of Angry Birds on very low volume. He wakes to a chest rising and falling under his face and his bare feet brushing against a bulky calf. He wakes to a room eclectically decorated like nothing he’s quite seen before outside of the drawings in the mythology books he’d made Bucky bring him from the library every time he was laid up sick. There’s random bits of armor piled in a corner, woven blankets draped across the armchair. Relics sitting on the shelves that look like they were taken straight from a museum exhibit. There’s a painting on the wall that depicts a cityscape unlike _anything_ Steve has ever seen.

“It’s Asgard.” Thor says, when he catches Steve looking. He sets his phone aside. “I brought some things from home to make this place feel….”

“Less sterile? Empty?” Steve rolls away, trying very hard not to let it show on his face how his heart is thudding hard in his chest. How he doesn’t quite know how he got here, waking up in Thor’s bed, snug against him. Unlike his own apartment, the windows in Thor’s bedroom are at full visibility, letting in as much sun as possible. Judging by its position in the sky, it’s probably nearly noon. He tugs at the sleeve of the sweater he’s still wearing. “How did I-”

“You fell asleep on the roof. I was going to carry you back to your floor but you have your settings where Jarvis won’t let anyone into your apartment without your permission unless your life is in immediate danger. So I brought you to mine instead. You didn’t even stir. But it seems we have stumbled on a solution to your trouble sleeping! As long as I am on Midgard, I shall share my bed with you, that you may rest.” Thor sits up, stretching his arms over his head. The t-shirt he’s wearing rides up, showing off his lower stomach and. 

And. 

Yeah, okay, Steve might not be able to reconcile abs on _himself_ , but he always knew what caught his eye, even before, when it was a death sentence. He drops his gaze to his hands on habit- can’t get caught looking- and takes a deep breath. Thor is… very, _very_ attractive, yes. But Thor is also seemingly the closest friend he has now and the only reason Steve actually feels rested for the first time since before the ice. He hadn’t even hesitated to offer himself and his bed to help Steve sleep. Which, if Steve takes him up on that might present its own completely new set of problems. With Bucky, waking up with morning wood was so normal for both of them they’d never thought anything of it, rolling away and getting dressed for the day as usual. With Thor it’s a whole different story. 

But sleep.

“Thank you for letting me stay here last night but I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you. Really, Thor. You don’t have to do anything on my account.”

“Nonsense!” Thor throws his arm around Steve’s shoulder, enthusiastically rubbing his knuckles in Steve’s hair. It hits him like a punch to the gut, the action one that he’d griped at Bucky for doing a thousand times. Before, Bucky had been the only one who hadn’t been afraid of roughing him up a little- other than the fellas Steve had picked fights with, of course. Now, Thor is the only that’s capable of roughing him up. “You need to sleep and so I will help you sleep until the day comes that you find someone who helps you more.” He tips Steve chin up with his hand and smacks a loud kiss on his forehead. Steve barely has time to blink and take it in before Thor is letting him go and standing, pulling him up from the mattress by his hand. “Now, come. I’m quite hungry and I suspect you are too. We’re alike, in that way. Needing lots of nourishment.”

And Thor’s right. When Steve thinks about it, he is fucking starving, stomach aching with it. He lets Thor drag him to the elevator where they head down to the common floor. At first he thinks there’s no one else there as they head into the kitchen. But then he sees Bruce, bent over the crossword from the day's paper, a half eaten grilled cheese and bowl of soup in front of him. 

“Hello,” he says, barely glancing up as they come in. “The soup is in the pot on the stove and there are more sandwiches keeping warm in the oven. They just got delivered.” He taps his pen against the paper a few times, jots down something in a row of the boxes, and then _actually_ looks up as Steve reaches up to get a couple of bowls down from the cabinet. He squints at Steve. “Is that the sweater I gave to Thor?”

“Indeed!” Thor claps Bruce on the shoulder as he walks past, hard enough that he winces. “It brings out the green in Steven’s eyes, I think.”

Bruce looks at Thor, at Steve, and back to Thor again. And Steve holds his breath, even though there’s no wrong being done here. But all he says is, “Huh. Okay, then. Sit down, Steve, come eat with us.”

And Steve does. 

**Author's Note:**

> alright stevethor nation you better make some noise!!!! if i keep spiraling and if anyone wants it i might even write a part 2 and maybe they kiss [THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE]


End file.
